Bethlem Gallery

Bethlem Gallery is funded by Wellcome to provide public engagement for research into mental health and justice. The public programme influences, and is influenced by, the Mental Health & Justice research team.

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Commissioned artists bring people together across these multi-disciplinary strands and across the delineations of service user, clinician, patient, public, artist and researcher to encourage conversations and learning through art practices. For more information about the partnership, please refer to the Bethlem Gallery website.

All works commissioned as part of the Mental Health and Justice project partnership with Bethlem Gallery are available to view here. A selection of works are listed below.

A report of the partnership and impact of the work can be viewed here.

Commissioned works

RIP SENI

Documentary, 2021

One morning in June 2020, graffiti reading RIP SENI appeared emblazoned across a Some questions about us (see below), outside the Bethlem royal hospital.

Further information on the Guardian here

One of My Kind (OOMK)

The Lexicon of Mental Health, 2021

OOMK worked with clinicians, artists with lived experience of mental illness and patients at Bethlem Royal Hospital to set up Level Press, a Risograph printing Press based at Bethlem Gallery.

Read here

the vacuum cleaner

How can we do this better?, 2019

An event for everyone affected by mental health in St Helens, Merseyside, to be in the same room to consider the question: ‘How can we work better together, to support each other and improve mental health care?’

Further details

Dolly Sen

Art and Justice exhibition, 2021

A space for other voices and perspectives on ‘the challenges that arise at the complex interface where mental health and mental healthcare interact with principles of human rights’.

Further details

The People Speak

Reimagining Mental Health, Justice, Creativity, 2020

The People Speak is a group of international artists, cultural producers, science communicators and activists based in East London.

Further details

Nikita Gill & Jade Montserrat

Inside/Outside, 2021

Through the lens of Jade’s practice as well as her recent experiences of being restrained by police officers and sectioned under the Mental Health Act, Inside / Outside speaks to urgent themes and issues that resonate with our current times

Further details

Sarah Carpenter

Performing Metacognition, 2021

A participatory artwork that invites you to explore metacognition. Sarah has been in collaboration with Andrew McWilliams (workstream 5).

Link to Performing Metacognition

Beth Hopkins

Self-binding directives through making

In November, 2019, artist Beth Hopkins began a year-long dialogue with researchers Tania Gergel and Lucy Stephenson about self-
binding directives.

Artworks from this research are published in Lancet Psychiatry, 20 May 2021 [pdf]

Mark Titchner

Some questions about us, July 2019

A public artwork situated just within the Bethlem Royal Hospital perimeter looking out onto Monks Orchard Road.

Further details and documentation

Bethlem Gallery collaborators

Lucy Owen

MHJ Project producer

Lucy is a freelance creative producer who has worked with Bethlem Gallery since 2013. She led on the MHJ public engagement application and is now shaping and coordinating the four year arts project, commissioning and supporting artists. She sees the Bethlem gallery as a ‘7th workstream’ establishing a reciprocal working relationship between artists and researchers.

Sam Curtis

MHJ public engagement curator

Sam Curtis is an artist and curator working at Bethlem Gallery. Through his role curating the MHJ public engagement project, he works closely with artists to support the development of their ideas, connecting artists to communities and supporting the realisation of artworks.

Shetha Haddad

MHJ project administrator

Shetha Haddad is an enthusiastic ceramicist who has exhibited her work around the South East of England and the Middle East. Coming from a background of family focused Social Support and Outreach Team Management. Shetha graduated from Goldsmiths with BSc. Hons. in Anthropology which she followed up with a Masters Degree in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from SOAS in 2002. She also gained a Diploma in Business Management from the Chartered Management Institute in 2010.

Michaela Ross

MHJ evaluator

Michaela Ross is an artist who lives and works in London. She took undergraduate degrees at the University of York (English/History of Art) and at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze (Fine Art/Painting). She has an MA in Painting (Wimbledon College of Arts, UAL) and was awarded her PhD in 2013 (Chelsea College of Art and Design, UAL). She has been a teaching fellow and visiting lecturer at King’s College London (Dept. of Culture, Media and Creative Industries) and is an associate lecturer at Goldsmiths College, UoL.